Our civilization in decline

ABD reports on the students she TAs at Decent U, many of whom are shocked to discovered that they let just anyone edit Wikipedia.

I think I've mentioned that I'm a TA for a freshman seminar this semester. The kids are all nice enough--your typical eager, bright-eyed first-years. But dear heavens, it's hard to get them out of "book report" mode and into "research paper" mode. I gave them a talk with suggestions for how to go about structuring their paper and so on. And then I spent a fair amount of time discussing what reference materials they might want to look at and which ones they should avoid. I clearly stated that encyclopedias (with the exception the music encyclopedias: New Grove and MGG) were not an acceptable source--I even threw in the "you're not in high school anymore" line.

And then I moved onto the evils of Wikipedia. "Anyone can add to it, so it's not a reliable reference," I said, which yielded wide eyes and a few incredulous "really?"s and "Are you serious?" Clearly, much of my class had availed themselves of Wikipedia in the past. I told them about a past experience grading papers: something odd jumped out at me, and when I looked at the citation, it was for Wikipedia. But it seemed wrong, so I went to Grove (written by actual music scholars), which directly contradicted what Wikipedia had said. So I of course asked the class: which source did I give more weight to in grading this paper?

Fast-forward to today: I was emailed a first rough draft from someone who's clearly on top of things (the paper's not due for another three weeks or so). Two-thirds of the citations are for three different Wikipedia articles and two encyclopedia articles (of the Britannica sort). Can I go bang my head on a wall now?

The kids these days...